Ammonia Is 0, Nitrite Is 0.......but No Nitrate Rise After 7 Days.

[ZoddyZod]

morning!

So I've finally had zero readings and have had them for seven days (had a little ammonia spike yesterday but was gone by this morning) yet my nitrate level has stayed flat at 10ppm (same as tap).

During the seven days I have not performed any water changes.

Is the nitrate build up a slow process, or is something else happening in the tank?

 

[shelaghfishface]

have u got tonnes of plants in there? even if you have tho i would deffo wait for a nitrate reading.. give it a few more days
what test kit are u using?

 

[ZoddyZod]

have u got tonnes of plants in there? even if you have tho i would deffo wait for a nitrate reading.. give it a few more days
what test kit are u using?

Only a java fern, moss ball and a few stems of vallis.

API test kit, and yes I'm doing the nitrate bottle/tube shaking correctly

I did a 50% water change this morning so any reading will now be off because of this. I was just wondering how long it should take for them to start rising, considering the 80 days it has taken to get 0's, just trying to be sure nothing odd is happening......

 

[simb07]

Hi ZoddyZod,
I posted yeaterday about a similar problem i was having with the API Nitrate tests. I'm mid cycle and could not get any readings for NitrAtes either. This was bugging me so much (test strips showed huge amounts !!) i decided to do an improvised test..... basically I started by taking only 1ml of tank water & adding 4ml of "tap" water to give the 5ml needed for the API test....

1st attempt ( same as before )
2nd attempt ( using only 0.5ml of tank + 4.5ml tap ) same as before
3rd attempt ( i used only 5 drops of tank water and added the rest from the tap - approx 4.9ml ) & hey presto a reading of 40ppm was returned. I must have huge quantities of Nitrates..... not sure about the maths to work this out tho

I redid test 3 a couple of times with a steady reading of 40ppm.

I reckon either a very high NitrIte level or ridiculous amounts of NitrAte render their tests useless.

But atleast now i have the satisfaction of knowing my N-bacs are actually processing the NitrIte

Maybe worth trying something similar with yours

simb07

 

[ZoddyZod]

I reckon either a very high NitrIte level or ridiculous amounts of NitrAte render their tests useless.

Maybe worth trying something similar with yours

I should've mentioned that I did a fish-in cycle, so I should not have seen off the scale readings. Highest ammonia I ever saw was around the 0.5ppm mark.

 

[arobinson1984]

Hi zoddy, what make of tank do you have?

It may be a long shot but if its a juwel tank and you are using the juwel internal filter system then they include a nitrate removal sponge (green) in the filter.

I wouldn't worry too much about low nitrate readings, as long as your ammonia and nitrite readings are dropping to double zeros in 12 hours without anymore blips, thats the main thing to be aiming for, low nitrates will be an added bonus.

Andy

Edit: Silly Tw*t I am lol, just seen your have a fluval roma in your sig, that theory fast went out the window lol

 

[ZoddyZod]

I wouldn't worry too much about low nitrate readings, as long as your ammonia and nitrite readings are dropping to double zeros in 12 hours without anymore blips, thats the main thing to be aiming for, low nitrates will be an added bonus.

well that's what I thought but I was exepcting that if the ammonia and nitrite are being eaten, then nitrate would noticeably rise within a week. Will try to be more patient!